Stephenson v. Reeves

• Decision Date: 08 January 1891
• Citation: 8 So. 695,92 Ala. 582
• Parties: STEPHENSON v. REEVES ET AL.
• Court: Alabama Supreme Court

8 So. 695

92 Ala. 582

STEPHENSON v. REEVES ET AL.

Supreme Court of Alabama

January 8, 1891

Appeal from circuit court, Crenshaw county; JOHN P. HUBBARD, Judge.

This was a statutory real action in the nature of ejectment, and was brought by appellees, as the heirs of Richard Reeves deceased, against appellant, Stephenson.

Parks & Parks, for appellants.

Gamble, Bricken & Gamble, for appellee.

MCCLELLAN J.

It is well-settled law that a defendant in ejectment, who is not a mere trespasser on the land sued for, may always set up a paramount title outstanding in a third person, unless the plaintiff and defendant claim title, or whatever right, less than absolute title they assert and rely on, from a common source. Pollard v. Cocke, 19 Ala. 188; Gantt v Cowan, 27 Ala. 582; Snedecor v. Freeman, 71 Ala. 140; Cooper v. Watson, 73 Ala. 252; Guilmartin v. Wood, 76 Ala. 204. We do not understand, from this record, that the defendant claims title or any right he now relies on from Richard Reeves, the ancestor of the plaintiffs, whose title they rely upon for a recovery. On the contrary, he claims no title at all in the land, but only that he is in possession under color of title by virtue of a deed from Petty, from whom he purchased, and who was at the time of such purchase in the actual possession of the land under claim of right. He does not undertake to sustain Petty's claim of right, nor even to show whence the latter derived his possession, or the color of title under which he held. He does not affirm that Nancy Reeves, Petty's grantor, as was developed in plaintiffs' proof, had any title to, or even the possession of, the land, nor does he maintain, directly or by implication, that Richard Reeves owned the land. His right to assert every claim he has advanced in the cause is the same whether Petty held under Nancy Reeves, or Richard Reeves, or a stranger to both of them. However incapable Petty was to vest title in him by the conveyance of 1883, that conveyance, Petty being in possession, claiming to be rightfully in possession, and transmitting that possession to the defendant, carried such color of title with it as raised the latter's possession above the level of a mere trespass, without importing any connection or reliance on his part with the title of Richard Reeves, deceased. Miller v. State, 38 Ala. 600; Cooper v. Watson, supra. The defendant, therefore, not being a mere trespasser, and not...